doublearon77 - Posted - 06/25/2015:  09:42:16

Hi all,

Forgive me if this has been asked before. I bought an old pre mounted calf skin head off of e bay. I tried mounting it to my Supertone last night. It seems that it is a low crown and the old head I took off is a high crown. It will not stretch enough to allow the tension hoop to go down far enough. Is it possible to re-wet the head to make it stretch or do I just need to start from scratch?

Thanks, Aaron

mbanza - Posted - 06/25/2015:  09:45:01

You can re-wet the head using a wet rag.  Wipe it inside and out, but stay away from the area at the flesh hoop.

mijknahs - Posted - 06/25/2015:  10:31:07

How about the other way around? Can you make a high crown head into a medium or low crown? I have a calfskin head that is too stretched out and sits too low to tighten any more on one of my banjos (on another banjo it still can be tightened up to pitch but not much more - almost bottoming out).

doublearon77 - Posted - 06/25/2015:  12:50:27

quote:

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Originally posted by mbanza

 

You can re-wet the head using a wet rag.  Wipe it inside and out, but stay away from the area at the flesh hoop.

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Thanks!

mbanza - Posted - 06/25/2015:  13:06:26

Jim, you're in a tough spot with that one.  If you have enough room for the head to be pulled down more, you can compensate a bit by placing a spacer, for example the bead from an old plastic head, beneath the tension hoop.  Since, in your case, that space isn't there, best bet is a new head.  A few folks have successfully remounted skin heads after trimming, so it's not impossible, but it is very difficult.

Edited by - mbanza on 06/25/2015 13:07:18

mijknahs - Posted - 06/25/2015:  13:27:49

Thanks. It's just such a good sounding head. I'd love to use it on my other banjo but it just bottoms out. I don't really want to cut the neck slot either.

Mike Floorstand - Posted - 06/25/2015:  14:49:41

quote:

---

Originally posted by mbanza

 

Jim, you're in a tough spot with that one.  If you have enough room for the head to be pulled down more, you can compensate a bit by placing a spacer, for example the bead from an old plastic head, beneath the tension hoop.  Since, in your case, that space isn't there, best bet is a new head.  A few folks have successfully remounted skin heads after trimming, so it's not impossible, but it is very difficult.

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Very difficult I'm not even sure how I'd start to attempt that. Maybe you could sit the flesh hoop in a tray of shallow water so that just the rim gets wet, then somehow ease up the skin around the hoop. Work round the hoop slowly and then pinch it together with clothes pegs until it dries again?

newgen5 - Posted - 06/25/2015:  14:50:22

I recently removed a calfskin head on a vega tubaphone. I hadn't had any experience with these heads so before I replaced it I thought I clean it up a bit. I ran warm water on it with hoop in place and scrubbed it inside out. It wrinkled terribly and really worried me. I towel dried it and put it back on. After getting back to around g# the crown raised around 1/8" above the tonering whereas before it was below flush. Played it for about 3 weeks now with no changes. Sounds great and I like the feel of it. It's kind of fuzzy. This head btw was very old, probably been on there since 1913. Don't know if this really helps but that has been my experience. Good luck.

mijknahs - Posted - 06/25/2015:  16:02:51

Newgen5,

Are you saying that the crown shrank an 1/8"?